I have for many years been interested in one basic (but big) question: why do language teachers teach in the ways they do? This question has driven much of my work on teacher cognition, since under…

Shona Whyte's insight:

Simon Borg shares some reflections on the relationship between research and (language) teaching practice and ways to "address the recurrent sentiment among teachers than research has no relevance to their work"

Does research engagement by teachers (i.e. reading and doing research) enhance the quality of their classroom practices? In this talk I draw on a series of studies which examine language teachers’ and managers’ views on this issue. The findings I report highlight a range of positive, hesitant and negative perspectives on the relationship between research engagement and teaching quality. What also emerges in the views expressed by teachers and managers are diverse conceptions of what ‘research’ means, typically emphasizing personal, practical and informal activities or, in contrast, those which are more formal, theoretical and academic. Neither of these conceptions of research provides a satisfactory basis for promoting research engagement as a productive professional development strategy. I will thus conclude the talk by outlining a conception of teacher research engagement which is feasible and rigorous and which has the potential to contribute positively to the quality of language teachers’ work.

Shona Whyte's insight:

Borg highlights differing views of what consitutes "research" - unsurprisingly, teachers and researchers don't use the same definition, making collaboration challenging.